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GEORGE WATTERSTOH 
KEUINISCENCES OF THE METROPOLIS i in DAILY HATIONAL IHTELLIOEXCEE D«o«mber IS, 1862, 

I observes la a paragraph in one of the newspapers of this city 
that a witness in a late trial before the Circuit Court of the District 
af footing the rights of property* stated that thirty-fire years ago (1817) 
"he bathed as far north as H Street near 11th Street, and oaU(ht fish there 
in the streanf and that Mr* Bradley, one of the oounsel, said that he had 
often shot woodoooks thereabouts." Tn this statement I am Inolined to think 
there is some defeat of memory, or some error in the tot>oirraphy of our oity, 
evinced by those gentlemen. At the period referred to, or indeed at a nuoh 
more remote period, there oould not hare been found any thing larger than 
a minnow in a very small ravine through v^oh the drainage from the "White- 
oak Slashes", as they wore formerly oalled, flowed. That the first nay hare 
washed himself in the water may be correct, but the fish story is rather Im- 
probable. In 1817 I suspect there were not many woodcocks to shoot in that 
part of the city, for they were not abundant twenty years before, when the 
metropolis was a wilderness, end but few hunters to bag them. New York Avenue 
passes at the point the witness mentions as the scene of his youthful exploits 
in bathing and fishing, and not far from that point east runs the farm of a Mr* 
Jenkins, a part of whioh was afterwards oooupied by the oity almshouse, or 
asylum. The "Whiteoak Slashes" extended some distance north, from about 15th 
to 7th Street west. It was In these "slashes" that the body of the first 
man hanred Ir our oity was buried. He was guilty of the inurder of his wife, 
and imprisoned in a small briok house of throe rooms, the first Jail in 
MTashinfrton, whioh stood on the lot adjoining the present bath-house on C 
street. The Countrymen of the murderer had caused his body to be interred 
in Holmead's Burial Ground, near that of a daughter of a poor but respect- 



8* 

able widoir of this oity, who beoaae 80 deeply afflioted at this oireuah> 
ttanoe that some of her frienda, to relloTe her, imdertook to disinter 
the murder's body« whioh* in great haste, they deposited in the "slashes", 
nov nearly corered with fine buildings and gardens. But the disinterrment 
being disooTsred by the oountrymen of the homioide, his body was carried 
baok and deposited in its fonner grave. Again the poor widow became in- 
oonsolable, and oomplained bitterly of this fresh outrage to her parental 
feelings, and the saxw persons (one of idioaa is now living in this olty) 
onoe more brought the body baok to where they had first placed lt« with the 
lid downwardsi tne body fell out« and it was afterwards buried near where it 
had thus been left \ty those who had taken such aa interest in its fate. The 
ooffin for several years served as a kind of bridge over a small rut or gully 
near the spot where the murderer had been finally interred. Fish* I believe, 
did not ascend hlpher than abo^it B Street north, and only in the Tiber, then 
flowing across the present Pennsylvania avenue, about seventy or eighty paoes 
west of the brick arch, and over trtiloh, in 1793, a log was oast which served 
as a bridge, and over irtiioh the process ion also passed, headed by Gen. Wash- 
ington, to lay the cozmer-stone of the oapitol. Here, wiiile a bo^', in connex- 
ion with some of ny Juvenile assooiates«I not only learnt the ai^ of swiaaa- 
Ing, but, in the fishing season, oaught with the fragment of an old seine, 
obtained I know not how, quantities of herrings and other fish. It was in 
this stream mainly, into which the tide flowed, that fish of any siie were 
found, and it was on Its banks that boys angled, and often, not far from where 
the canal now runs, they shot white-back and other ducks, or floated pleasant- 
ly, in small canoes, on its bosom. The waters of the Tiber in 1793 oocasion- 
ally extended, in places, over the present Pennsylvania avenuej the road to 
the President's House beinp: considerably north of it, end along which a 
traveller in that day, mifbt pass from the Capitol Square to the former 



8, 

without meeting a hunan being. 

Kiss Lynoh, in her desoription of Washington published in 
'^arper's Magiasine for December, is mistaken in saying thlit "at early 
as 1663 the city mas laid out and oalled Rome, and the little streaa 
that flows at the foot of the Capitol Hill still retains the olassical 
name of the Tiber". The oity was iiever laid out until 1791, by Ua^or 
L 'Enfant and Mr. Ellioot, two engineers employed by Gen. "ashlngton for 
that purpose. In 1668 a patentee naned Pope located a part of the present 
site of the oity of about 400 acres, bordering on thestream walled the Tiber, 

but afterwards oalled Ooose Creeki and tradition says that as his name 

to 
was Pope, he gare/^his plantation the name of Rome, oalled the strean whioh 

bordered it the Tiber, and the hill beyond it Capitol Hill, on whioh, it 

is said, he predicted that a magnificent edifice would b« erected at bom* 

future period, which would bo oalled the Capitol. 

I give you these remlnlsoenoes, sur>T)08lng that they may be inter- 

esting to yo r r-eaders, as the recollect ons of one now, I believe, with two 

others, the only inhabitants of Washington in 1793. 



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INDIANA 46962 ^ . ♦ y^jiK^ . <J>„ A . jA^Stf^A » '^^ tX" ♦ 







